Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), the co-chair of the Biden campaign, acknowledged in an interview that President Biden, who is 81 years old, has “diminished energy” compared to when he was a younger man but insisted the president shows no “mental feebleness” and remains “sharp and commanding.”
Coons, in an interview with Politico’s “Playbook Deep Dive” podcast, said he’s tired of the relentless media focus on Biden’s verbal slipups and speculation about whether he has experienced cognitive decline since winning the 2020 election.
“Of course Joe Biden is over 80 years old, and like any human being over 80 years old, that means there’s a little diminished energy,” he acknowledged.
But he said the media should be more focused on what he called the “yawning gap” in character, morality and capability between Biden and former President Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Coons noted that Biden has had “a lifelong stutter,” the effects of which emerge from time to time, but which he insisted isn’t a sign of a mental confusion.
“I think what is highlighted in some of the, in my view, attack reels that I see on other news outlets is not evidence of mental feebleness but is either evidence of a lifelong stutter, or the result of having an incredibly demanding schedule and having served in public life 50 years,” he said.
“When I say that I find him sharp and commanding, and I have no concerns about his mental acuity, I’m being honest,” he said.
Coons pointed out that both Biden and Trump in recent public events have “misidentified who they were speaking to and who they met with,” but he said public officials who often speak to the media, travel regularly and work long days “make similar slips.”
“I get a little tired of the relentless focus on what are very minor slipups by President Biden that I see other elected officials of comparable age make regularly, and frankly other elected officials my age make regularly,” the 60-year-old said.
Biden is 81 years old, and Trump will turn 78 next week.
Trump was recently convicted in Manhattan of 34 felony counts of falsifying New York business records and will be sentenced July 11. He faces up to 20 years in prison, but legal experts say they expect him to remain free while he appeals his conviction.
Trump’s Republican allies have criticized Trump’s prosecution as politically motivated.
Coons said the media should spend more time reporting about Trump’s character and its possible impact on the country if he’s elected and less time raising questions about Biden’s mental and physical abilities.
“The number of times I’ve been interviewed about the question, ‘Is Joe Biden the same man he was when he was 60?’ vastly outweighs the numbers of times I’ve been asked, ‘Are you scared about the future of our democracy given what Donald Trump said today?’” he said.